Pick out components of my next POKER computer get $25

[helpmeout]

Semprons are AMDs new durons in other words they suck.

600W powersupply lol overkill.

I'd say just get a P4 3ghz+ (not real important how fast). Make sure your board has 4 memory slots(hyperthreading as well) and SATA. I personally prefer gigabyte boards.

Get 4X512 ram it is cheap as chips. Get a decent brand like kingston not some unknown crap.

You want a graphics card that is compatable with the board you get PCI express or AGP. PCI express is newer but the cards at the moment arent better, not that graphics cards matter for playing poker.

Get a SATA drive over IDE/PATA as these run a bit faster size doesnt matter much unless you want to copy DVDs onto your HD. Seagate or Western Digital.

Get a decent case with a 400W powersupply obviously you get what you pay for. Dont listen to Overkill Bill here, 600W is rediculous.

Also dont worry too much about fans and coolers they only matter if you are getting top of the range processors. Top of the range stuff runs much hotter eg big difference in heat between a 3.4ghz and 3.2ghz P4.

Home Edition or XP Pro, doesnt matter they are both a rip off, find some geeky friend who will get you a copy for free.

[Buccaneer]

[ QUOTE ]
LOL you're telling him to buy a 3-year old motherboard chipset with a Sempron.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am not telling him anything. I am suggesting what I think will fill his needs without regard to any gain on my part.

Your thoughts on optimizing a mission specific computer are interesting. My recomendations are based on building a bullet proof unit that will last for years. I still have a system built around a Asus CUSL2-C Black Pearl edition mobo. Best damn board ever built in my opinion.

Like I said the solution I suggested is stable and based on proven technologys. A board design that is 3 years old is not going to need patches or work arounds. I still go with the not so sexy Sempron cpu because it does what it says. True, the Sempron lacks 64 bit instruction set and has a smaller cache but other than that it is the equal to an Athlon. The nForce2 chipsets may lack the latest innovations, bells and whistles but you will never notice the lack of DDR2 support or PCIexpress when playing poker online. Once the cover is on the unit you will never know if a Sempron is running the show or a venice core based chip. What is he ever going to need with a cpu that dual channels if all he is going to do is surf the internet, play poker and run PT? This is a poker machine not a video editing or DVD burning machine. The bottle neck is going to be his conection to the internet not the internals of some over priced chip.

I still go with my suggestion of a 600 watt powersupply. It may be overkill but it will be usefull with a chip that draws 100 - 150 watts, drives sucking power, and DUAL monitors, even if they are LCDs if he ever adds more monitors then he will be glad to have the extra wattage. Even if he decides to go with a 400 watt PS I think he should put more thought into it than your suggestion to "pick a random Antec powersupply".

You also say that you have 2 Gig of Kingston in your system and it only needs 1 Gig. I have to agree, too much memory slows a system down, but I wonder what type of memory your machine would be running if PNY had been on sale the day you got your memory. Again Mushkin just to be sure.

It has been my experience that systems built to run at 150% work great at 100%.

Tiger has Dell E173FP 17" LCDs for 209.99. Not a bad price but I think that I would wait and get 19" units when they comedown.

[raccon]

Usually monitors have their own PSUs, so it doesn't matter at all what your computer wattage is. 400W should definitely be enough for anybody.

[grandgnu]

[ QUOTE ]
Usually monitors have their own PSUs, so it doesn't matter at all what your computer wattage is. 400W should definitely be enough for anybody.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, monitors will have their own power connections that don't involve the power from your computer case. You don't need 600W, you just need a stable 400-500w and that should be more than enough, and it gives you room to upgrade in the future should you decide to do so.

[jdesros]

Here... try this.

http://www.fisher-price.com/us/barne...1&id=19869

[Buccaneer]

[ QUOTE ]
Usually monitors have their own PSUs, so it doesn't matter at all what your computer wattage is. 400W should definitely be enough for anybody.

[/ QUOTE ]

It would be quite understandable to think this. While all monitors have a powersupply they do require and external signal from the graphics card. Most graphics cards pull power from the socket they are connected to to generate the signal. In the days of 33mHz CPUs they ran cool and had no fan. A 100 could run for a time with no heat sink. But soon they became more powerful and fans were installed. Now they even have electronicaly cooled cpus.

Todays graphic cards draw so much power they need heat sinks and fans now. The GeForce 6800 even has two on card power plugs to power it. It can not draw the 300 - 350 watts it needs to run from the mother board it must get it direct from the powersupply. Even sometypes of memory has heat sinks and fans now.

Check Toms for the following info on power requirements regarding power requirements.

100 watts for CPU
50 watts for hard drive(s) 25 x 2
25 watts for cd drive
25 watts for motherboard
50 watts for 1 Gig memory
30 watts for plain jane single monitor graphics card
10 watts for fans, lan card, lights
5 watts for sound
6 watts for USB (3 x 2)
8 watts for IEEE
3 watts for mouse/keyboard

312 watts total
now add in a dual head non gaming graphics card (not the 350 watt card) and if you want to add an external HD, or printer to print your stats, or a microdrive and you are going to be close to 350 watts. Most powersupply ratings are marketing numbers. What is important is a steady power supply with out fluctuations and plenty of reserve. I went with the 600 for the reserve thinking about data corruption.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
RAID is an absolutely terrible idea. It meets needs he absolutely doesn't come close to needing -- maximum speed -- at the sacrifice of something valuable to him -- maximum data integrity. There is nothing close to a valid reason for him to be using RAID.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, he does want to get speed on his system. He's going to be having multiple windows and applications open at one time. A RAID 0 array will increase his access times quite nicely.

In addition, "redundancy" I don't recall being mentioned by the OP, nor do I see any of the systems being recommended including this. If he's being recommended a system with one hard drive, or a RAID 0 array with two hard drives, it's the same thing in the "redudancy" sense.

He can obtain an external Seagate 160GB backup drive on newegg.com for around $160 that connects to the USB port and includes backup software. Since I recommended two 80GB drives in the RAID 0 array, it would wind up his system having 160GB of space available and the backup system featuring the same, if he chooses to use it.

If not, he still has a DVD burner that he can copy any important data and files onto just in case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's what you wrote, and what you have him spending a notable amount of unnecessary money for:

[ QUOTE ]

RAID Card: HighPoint RocketRaid 1520 SATA PCI $51 + $4.99

If you truly want performance on your system, you'll want to setup a RAID 0 array (striping). This will take two hard drives, and combine them into one (at least, that's what your system will see). This will improve the speed of your systems access to programs, but be aware that should one drive fail, you will lose everything since the system is not "redundant". And a "redundant" system would slow you down a bit.


[/ QUOTE ]

Let me be clear, like my response was in the first place.

This is not only unnecessary for his purposes, it actually goes against them.

Raid is stupid for what he needs. It gives him nothing valuable for a poker player, costs extra, and takes away data integrity(valuable for a poker player). Lose one disk, you lose them both. You do not talk about one disk for back-up, but explicitly for striping.

Forget it. Terrible advice. This is computer geekiness for the sake of pure computer geekiness. This is the kind of advice to stay away from.

Your bringing up what other people recommend as a way to try to say your way isn't really worse(which it STILL actually is, by the way), couldn't be more ridiculous.

Again, truly terrible, thoughtless advice. Trying to justify it just does more to prove the point.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
I still go with my suggestion of a 600 watt powersupply. It may be overkill but it will be usefull with a chip that draws 100 - 150 watts, drives sucking power, and DUAL monitors, even if they are LCDs if he ever adds more monitors then he will be glad to have the extra wattage.

[/ QUOTE ]

You plug both your monitorpower cables into the same computer? LOL. I've never had a PC that even had outlets for two power cables for two monitors.

This is just way beyond dumb.

[raccon]

You're right of course, but I still think 400W suits the basic (and poker) needs and for poker computer the cheapest video card will do the thing.

But of course if one is a heavy-user, more powerful PSU is a must. A constant 350W usage exhausts 400W PSU way more than a 600W one. The more powerful one is more reliable and lasts longer (both last long enough since the average age of computer is just few years).

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
It would be quite understandable to think this. While all monitors have a powersupply they do require and external signal from the graphics card. Most graphics cards pull power from the socket they are connected to to generate the signal. In the days of 33mHz CPUs they ran cool and had no fan. A 100 could run for a time with no heat sink. But soon they became more powerful and fans were installed. Now they even have electronicaly cooled cpus.

Todays graphic cards draw so much power they need heat sinks and fans now. The GeForce 6800 even has two on card power plugs to power it. It can not draw the 300 - 350 watts it needs to run from the mother board it must get it direct from the powersupply. Even sometypes of memory has heat sinks and fans now.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of which has nothing to do with needing a big power supply to run two monitors.